


Fires In Bloom

by shortlived



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Arora-chichou | Alola, Domestic, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-19 13:18:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20657888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortlived/pseuds/shortlived
Summary: The breeze rolls in with the waves, and Green inhales. It smells like perfume, crushed petals on his tongue.Part of a RedGreen week on Instagram!





	1. First Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is a fic for a RedGreen week taking place on Instagram! I tried to connect all the prompts because that's how I live.
> 
> Fic will have (in the future) some slight suggestive sexual themes (but only suggestive), dream nonsense and dumb losers. Please enjoy!

The taste of liquor is sharp and disgusting, but warm down Red’s throat. He pops the bottle from his mouth, the drink vapour off his tongue. “You’re going first thing  _ tomorrow?” _

_ “Yup.”  _ Green yanks the drink from him, contents sloshing in their exchange. Red’s fingers grope the empty air before lowering to drum on the grassy hill. “There’s a big institute up north I wanna check out, and you know. I need to get back t’doing things _ my  _ way.” 

It’s incredibly unsatisfying—the drumming, that is; he’s hardly paying attention to Green. Green said  _ gone, by tomorrow,  _ used his cocky  _ planning for the future  _ voice for it, and that’s all Red needs to know. Gone means what it means. Gone means no more them. Gone means no more nights like this.

“I’ll book a ride, and.” Green lifts a hand made stiff, carrying it slowly through the air. It’s a smooth enough flight for Red’s drunken brain to imagine it on its course, taking Green away to wherever. The city is just below them, the fluorescent nightlife mirroring the starry sky as an ocean would. Earlier, it was a soothing sight. Earlier, it was easy to enjoy the pointless drinking, their quiet downtime. There was no reason to think about terminals or planes, or anything past the night.

Now, the back of Red’s throat tastes like acid.

_ “Boring.”  _ The word comes clumsy off his tongue, and he whacks Green’s deforming plane, knocking it off-course. But a split second change of heart has him grab it before it crashes, bony fingers wrapping tight and dragging it over his stomach. He ignores the sudden pinch in temperature, the butterfrees in him trying to avoid the fire under their feet. Resists the temptation to lace their fingers.

(Not that he  _ wants _ to; it’s just a thing, a drunken thing—)

But Green presses into him, that stupid hair tickling Red’s temple, his breath foul with the smell of liquor when he exhales. It takes just a few pestering nudges to get Red to look at him, and what a stupid thing to fall for. Green’s smirk sharpens, his eyes dark in the night, but keeping Red locked in all the same.

“You already missing me?” he teases, and shifts in, slowly. Red swallows, throat already dry. Green frees his hand to set it on the curve of Red’s thigh, making Red too aware of the thin fabric of his shirt, how easy it would be for Green to find skin; in the same instance his mind is screaming about  _ lips _ , and _ yes, _ and  _ please _ . 

It comes—slowly. Clumsily. Red’s heart hurts when it slams into his rib-cage at the first touch of their lips. Soft, but too dry, he thinks. But he can accept that. What examples of a good kiss did he have? And the sensation of their mouths against one another is good enough, the motion, how his ears go deaf with ringing when the Green’s tongue darts across his bottom lip.

Red jolts back baffled, wide-eyed, dizzy.  _ “What—”  _

He then gets it, a little too late ( _ oh,  _ that’s normal), with Green already laughing up his guts, even as Red shoves him hard. 

“Hahaha— Your  _ face!”  _

“Shut up!”

It doesn’t end the night, and they don’t stop there. In the years that come to past, Red remembers the faint taste of alcohol, the sweeter texture of Green’s mouth. The night drifting in and out, and what Green had told him:  
  


_ “Let’s do this more when we meet again.”  _

But would Green remember a drunken make out when that finally happened?


	2. Lost in Alola, Coffee

Did Red have any idea of what was going on here?

Them getting bodied and wrestled by the flora, yes, that was very much going on. Paulownias, fatsias, vines, moss and ferns, and who the hell knew what else was out here being big and fat and ready to slap Green in the face? They were in the depths of the Lush Jungle, to the far north where the land rose into hills to impress the volcanic mountainside. The area that Mallow used for her trials was all nice and pretty, but an absolute lie to what lay beyond.

Don’t trust a pretty face, whatever it tries to tell you. It’s probably a mawile.

A stuffy damp heat nestles between his clothes and skin, keeping Green’s breathing ragged with the uneven ground rocking him about. He wore loose linen trousers to keep his legs free of stinging grass, yet his ankles felt suspiciously itchy. Everything felt itchy. His head felt itchy.

And somehow, this alone wasn’t Green’s source of misery. The trip out was meant to be just the two of them, him and Red, spending _alone time _together. But that had gone south the instant Red spotted maranges growing fat in the thicket. Green was distracted one second, searching for their path buried and unwilling to be unearthed in the undergrowth; and when he looked back there was Snorlax, peeling a branch off from its tree, taking the fruit and chomping on it whole while Red yanked off the rest into his bag.

Then Snorlax throwing the waste at Green once they were done, forgotten in their greed.

“What’s wrong with fruit?” was Red’s oblivious protest to Green’s reasonably prickly mood. They were moving again  _ (finally) _ , except now with one giant lummox constantly rustling the greenery behind their backs, heavily thumping the dirt with every step. “He didn’t _ hit _ you.”

“He didn’t even see I was there!” Didn’t even  _ care _ about his surroundings! The shamrock hue of the jungle was falling into to a weary juniper, making their way difficult to see. Maybe this would be a good time to accept Pikachu’s presence, but Green wasn’t about to allow  _ that.  _ He would never get the guy stuffed away again. And who knew how that hyperactive battery would ruin his plans?

“So he didn’t do it on purpose,” Red continues, while Green pulls a torch out of his bag, twisting it on. Trumbeak caw in the distance, a symphony of drums and cabasas that have been growing in volume since they came out.

“Look.” He turns, washing Red in the torch’s beam, making him squint and wave a hand. Green feels the edges of his mouth curl pettily. “I want to get us to get to our destination before it gets dark, so I don’t want to be dallying around while  _ that  _ thing eats anything and everything and gets us lost.” Snorlax huffs. Green ignores him. “I wanted it to be just the two of us for a reason.”

Red raises a dubious brow, arms crossed. Fine—it wasn’t  _ ever  _ going to be just the two of them. But their pokémon tucked safe and sound in their pokéballs while Green made sure Red was too occupied to think about pokémon was as close as it was going to get. As close as Green would ever want it to get, really.

“We’re already lost,” Red interrupts the generous thought.

Green near about throws the torch at him before stomping on instead.

No matter what it is Red says—no matter how the canopies shroud the land and blur the foliage into one another—they were  _ not  _ lost. Lost was for people who  _ felt  _ lost. Green didn’t feel that. He felt exasperated by the growing cawing over head, drilling between his ears; he felt stir-crazy with the neverending  _ swish-swish-swish-swish _ of Snorlax’s enormous frame disturbing the flora. He felt tired, his calves wearing down at the uphill battle taking place, the vines snaking about his ankles to try too many times to make him trip.

None of these had anything to do with feeling  _ lost,  _ and had absolutely nothing to do with his mood in any way, as the light of his torch became brighter to the dimming evening.

“Are we there yet?” pipes Red.

“Don’t start.”

“You said we’re not lost.”

“We’re not.”

“So?”

“What? You want a time? By the seconds?”

“Want you to admit we’re lost.”

Green shoves aside ropey vines as he swings his head around with a weaponized finger up in warning. _ “If you keep saying we’re—”  _

Unfortunately, if he hadn’t been busy thinking  _ OH  _ ** _SHIT_ ** _ ,  _ he would have realised he finally found the spot he was looking for.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Looks like you found the spot.”

Good thing someone else was on the case.

Red smiles over the rim of his cup before taking a sip. This— _ this _ was much better: smooth music blending with the light conversation of the other customers, the smell of coffee beans fused into the wooden walls and flooring. The lights dimmed to a golden hue, just enough to set the mood.

Green knew where they were. It was his favourite coffee place in Melemele, close to the southern docks that tourists kept busy everyday. This was where he got his coffee to-go, his toasted paninis or croissants fresh in the mornings. He always wanted to take Red here. But considering the guy referred to baristas as  _ coffee drink men,  _ Green figured he would blank at the drink options on the board.

Which was funnier to imagine than to risk playing with their busy queues.

“What?” Red asks. Green perks up, notices Red eyeing him curiously. “What are you thinking about?”

Green leans back. “Nothing.” He takes a sip of his own drink: the right temperature, the right taste. And yet, it doesn’t hit his throat right. “Just wondering how  _ you _ would feel falling off the side of a cliff.”

“Like you, probably.”

“So much for Snorlax watching our backs.”

“You fell on your front.”

“Sure doesn’t feel like it,” Green breathes, hovering a hand where it ached in his side. It hurts, but the pain doesn’t pulse or radiate under his fingers any worse when he lightly touches it.

He lets out a quiet hiss all the same.

“Hey,” Red says. He's standing up, palms flat on the table as his chair scrapes. “Let’s take a walk.”

Outside, the sky has been littered with stars. The waves of the ocean sway and ebb, and Green tastes seaweed and salt on the back of his tongue once they leave the warm café. He can’t hear the nightlife of bars or groups of friends passing them like he usually would. There’s no one else nearby, and the path they’re on is long and stretching, neverending.

It’s perfect. Just the two of them, the sea their only company.

“I wanted to show you a spot where you can watch the morelull glow.” Green holds Red’s hand tighter—some point finding it in his grip—at the confession. He’s above being ashamed about anything he does or say, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t get a little— well, not  _ shy,  _ just— unsure. Hesitant.  _ Even _ a guy like him.

And who can blame him, when it comes to Red? “I wanted to show you something special, you know? Guess it didn't turn out that way.” He  _ tchs _ , slants his head. “I still blame your Snorlax—”

Red’s stopped them, which Green only pays mind to when Red presses a hand to his cheek, angling Green to face him. But Green doesn’t see him when he does, with Red forcing his eyes closed when he brings his face, his lips, to his. They kiss for a while, chaste to begin with, then Red slips in a teasing tongue, going no farther than the front of his mouth.

Green tries to taste it, but he can’t. Red’s arms are around his shoulders, and it’s warmer than what’s going on between their mouths. His side burns bright with pain, his head spins. Green ignores it all, gripping at Red under his ribs, leaning on him. Focusing only on him. 

“I had a good time,” Red says, voice husky. Green laughs lowly.

“You would.”   
  
  
  


When Green wakes the next day, he’s surprised to find himself in bed with nothing more than a cough and his aching back.


	3. Hanahaki / Domesticity

@red: u ok@green: yeah. still sore but i’ll live.@green: want to do last night again sometime@red: falling into mushrooms?@green: funny@green: everything else except that@red: sure

Red stares at the screen of his pokégear, feet dangling from the ruin wall he’s made a seat, heel tapping idly at the worn stone. His mind is on the night before, the ways to _make it better,_ and—well, the way it ended. Heat burns the back of his neck, and he rolls his shoulders. The sun peeks out from behind in the act, reflecting off his gear screen and into his vision.

He hisses, rubs hard at his eyes; and still sees the white scar left in his sight by the time Hapu shows up for their battle.

It’s a free day off from the Battle Tree, a day before he’s required to be on Poni Island. But the schedule of the tree doesn’t stop restless trainers from coming over, enjoying the island’s vaster wilderness compared to the rest. The tauros doesn’t bat an eye or tail at the trainers who hang around the meadows, and trainers and their pokémon know better than to err too close to the more subdued beasts. If you hit one, you slight them all.

Knowing something didn’t actually stop it from happening, though.

That was what Red like about the island: the spontaneity of it, the challenge. And when the next day arrives, Red spots familiar faces from the previous when approaching the tree, some giving him a call , a wave, a shared tip of the hat. 

He has no reason to think about Green (that is, any more than usual) until someone asks him halfway through the day, _ hey, do you know what Green’s up to? He didn’t show this morning. _

Red shakes his head, unsure, but sends off a text.

There’s still no response once the stars start blinking in the sky.

“It could be his back,” Red reasons to the crowd he’s gathered. There’s scoffs, grunts, and whines. Mostly scoffs.

“He _ did _fall pretty high.” Again: scoffs. “Should I visit him tomorrow?”

Indifference. Snorlax shoves a fat fist through a watmel, slurping up the juices dripping off his paw, while Blastoise bashes the giant fruit against his shell, cracking it like a boiled egg.

Only Pikachu and Venusaur pay Red any further attention. Pikachu squeaks incessantly his worries, and Red frowns; until Venusaur places a vine upon each of their shoulders, giving them both a placid grunt.

Meaning: _ This was Green they were talking about. He got home safely. There’s no need to worry so quickly. _

With some consideration, Red nods. “She’s right,” he tells Pikachu. “Green could be healing up. Let’s wait.”

So they wait for the next day, arrive at the Battle Tree, and stay too busy to ask about Green until lunchtime arrives.

Or until a regular brings him up.

“Green didn’t show up again,” they share with a worried brow.

Red and Pikachu exchange looks.

  
  
  


Red frowns. “A fever?”

Green bats away the hand Red rests over his forehead. “C’mon, stop. I got a cold. It’s nothing.” 

Red frowns harder. Green snorts and coughs for it, a choking wheeze from deep in his lungs. It passes shortly, quick enough for Green to still smile, slapping Red’s arm.

“Don’t pout. You look scary with those eyebrows.” He laughs and coughs at once. “Like giant black caterpies.”

Red knocks his leg with the back of a hand. Despite that, the edges of his mouth soften. “You don’t very sound ill.”

“I’m ill, not blind.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Your hair’s _ always _looked like a rattata’s nest.”

It’s ridiculous how true it is. He has it off now, and there’s a dent around his hair like a halo, a greasy sheen at the top. Green wonders sometimes what it would look _ tamed, _but doubts he’ll ever see that. Like hair, like owner. Or just Red. 

Still, he likes it better off than on.

“Speaking of.” Green raises his eyebrows while Red glares intensely at the floor. He shoots the look at Green. “Are you hungry?”

What. “What does _ that _have to do with rattatas—”

Nothing, but it doesn’t stop them from joining the aisles of the supermarket with other midday shoppers. Red takes a basket, and Pikachu squeaks excitedly, hopping off towards the fruit and veg. Machamp follows after him with cautious chirps melting with the beeps and clatter of feet, leaving Green and Red by themselves. 

And what else is there to do but shop?

They pass through the vegetables first, a mesh of greens separated by the few splashes of reds and yellows. Green waits for the chill of the aisle to creep on him, to soothe the temperature flushing his skin, but it doesn’t do any good. Red picks up packets of tomatoes and cucumbers idly, then drops them back in.

“You gonna make a salad?”

“No. A curry.”

“A _ curry? _Have you made one before?”

“Daisy showed us.”

Which has to be _ forever _ago. But Green remembers the day vaguely, the three of them in the kitchen, shopping beforehand for ingredients just like this in a smaller, local store. Green’s stomach grumbles like Red’s Snorlax stirring to the smell of a meal. Surprisingly enough, he had been fancying Daisy’s food for a few days now.

“You’re looking in all the wrong places,” he remarks, picking up his pace. “This way. We need onions.”

It doesn’t make their shopping any straight forward. They spend forever picking a meat (with Red pointing and asking, “How about this one?”, and Green finding it hard to focus), spot Machamp and Pikachu—with the latter sat on Machamp’s shoulder—three aisles away, two arms pushing at a trolley filing with fruits. Red slips extra berries into theirs (as if Green doesn’t notice!) and sends them down every aisle (“let’s take a look”), and practically empties the bakery of sweets and sugary breads into his and Machamp’s trolleys, where they’ve managed to meet to join forces.

“You’re too soft,” Green chides Machamp, elbows resting across his trolley. “You can’t let Red do what he wants.”

Machamp titters gently. Was this really a bad thing?

Green pauses before huffing. “Don’t let him_ hear _you.”

Once they finally reach the checkouts, each of their pokémon has a trolley of their own. Some are paired up, like Arcanine with Tyanitar, Venusaur with Exeggutor, but they all fill the queues and belts with their products. Only Green’s stuck to a basket, somehow ending up behind _ Alakazam, _whose “groceries” consist of a wall of trashy romance novels, wine, and finger foods to go with the experience.

And yet somehow, _ somehow _ , _ he’s _the one left to push the giant trolley of all their purchases once they’re done. Green heaves, wheezes, his boiling skin for more than the temperature he’s been carrying all day. Red comes beside him, taking one side; and Green doesn’t lean into him, but he lets their arms rest together, his weight slipped towards Red as they walk.

They’re still together in the kitchen, until Red makes him sit down with a drink, a kiss. Their pokémon are filling his apartment with bags of shopping without a place, Alakazam sitting in the middle of the room cross-legged with her wine, snacks and books.

“Oi.”

She doesn’t stir. 

They open the double doors leading out to the beach, and everyone filters out onto the golden brown sand. Blastoise, Gyarados, and Lapras out in the sea; Pikachu, Arcanine, and Machamp giving chase of Pidgeot in the air. Alakazam takes to reading under Exeggutor and Rhyperior, both happy to doze in what’s left of the dipping sun. The breeze rolls in with the waves, and Green inhales.

It smells like perfume, crushed petals on his tongue.

_ —Machamp meets him at the front door, tittering. The front of the apartment is quiet, empty. _

“Green.”

He looks up, and Red slips into a deck chair beside him. Offers him a drink, takes his hand into his. 

_ —The pokémon leads him to a room at the back, the muted sound of a radio playing from behind the door. _

Red kisses him; his mouth tasting sweet, his skin making Green’s unbearably warm. 

_ —He opens it. _

He wants more of it anyway. More of him. More of this. 

_ “Green—” _

The thing he wants is right here with him.

_ —Red pulls Green onto his back, watching him flop listlessly across the bed. His skin blotchy, his body radiating heat. _

“Love you.”

Everything he needs—

_ —“Hospital,” Red tells Machamp, rising from the side of the bed. He stops, something tugging him. Red looks back. _

—is right here with him.

_ —Green is holding him, their hands laced at theifingers. _  
  


“Yeah. Right back.”


	4. Artist and their Muse

“Oh, alola alola, Red! How are you?”

Mina sets down her pencil, her sketchbook propped open on her knees. She sits cross-legged facing Green’s hospital bed, where the guy lays fast asleep, his blanket folded low to his stomach. He looks peaceful, almost—if not for the discolourations of reds and oranges that paint his skin like burns, starting from his neck to where his cotton pyjamas button together, climbing the side of his jaw to claw into his cheek.

After an indecisive moment, Red decides to settle his chair next to Mina’s. Nearly sits it in, but pauses, and goes to stand next to the bed instead.

He shouldn’t have waited a day, should he. He should’ve gone sooner.

“He’s been okay since I’ve been here. A really good subject.” Red hears a faint scritching sound from behind. “Did you know the first ever person to be diagnosed with _ Hanahaki _was an artist?”

Peering over his shoulder, he sees Mina’s gone back to drawing, eyes set on her work. Green, he guesses. Indifferent, he looks back.

“They painted the flowers their wife grew,” she continues, not seeming to mind his lack of a response, “bunched together in vases and over tables. Like the really old stuff around places like Galar. I liked their plein air watercolours best. They drew the flower fields and streams around the village they lived by. I paint outside now and then, but I’m still getting the hang of not fussing over the details.

“Anyway, this artist,” Mina goes on. “Their wife died, and even though they painted flowers, they said that ‘their flowers died with her.’ Just like an artist, huh? Apparently, they started using drugs to ‘_ inspire’ _them, or just because of depression, and what they took one time made them start imagining their wife was alive, dressed in nothing but flowers. Nothing! It wasn’t so great when they started imagining they were throwing up flowers, and becoming flowers too.

“They weren’t, but there was something in their lungs from the drug. But those marks, like Green’s got around his throat? They looked like flowers on the artist, growing from their chest all over their body. Apparently, spores got inside… it nearly took their life. But they spoke about it as a real life-changing experience. Their art took a complete 180 into surrealism!”

Mina lifts her pencil, showing the jagged edges of the lead. By then, Red had taken to his seat, and sees now the repeating images across her book: Green in rest, with some only of his face, then his whole body, the eyes always closed. Flowers join by decorative stems around him, small and simple, bold yet delicate.

“Well, it’s easy to cure.” The book snaps shut. “But Mallow felt bad anyway and asked me to tell you that she’s sorry. She made snacks too.”

Mina leans between her legs and picks up a brown carrier bag from under her chair, holding it for Red to take. When he does, the smell of sweet spice hits him first, before he sees the contents are wrapped, hidden from view.

He closes it. “Why?”

“Why?” She cocks her head, a finger to her jaw. “Why is she feeling sorry? Hm, well… she was the one who told Green about your date place.” She cocks it to the other side. “Or whatever it was?”

Or whatever it was. But with her job done, Mina stands, and gives her optimistic good-byes with a quick wave before leaving the two of them alone.

_ I’ll see you both for a rematch sometime! _

It was likely. This wasn’t some terminal illness that needed anyone to linger by the person’s bedside just in case. There was no need for Red’s stomach to curdle, for him to chew at the skin of his bottom lip; to hang around, doing nothing, for someone who didn't even know he was there—and would chastise him for not doing something more useful with his time.

Yet, still.

Red leans elbows on the bed, his chair pulled in, Mina’s pushed away. Green’s dressed in short sleeves, revealing how far the markings slither down his arms in ember-like licks. A fire burning into the deepest of reds, cradling his body in the spaces where Red couldn’t reach.

He lays his hands over Green’s arm, feeling the boiling heat.

His stomach turns again.

  
  
  
  
  


“Ugh, it’s too hot. I can’t concentrate.”

Red raises his head. The hospital bed is empty, sheets tossed aside; the curtain dividers gone, the walls stripped of their beige and blues. He searches in the dark the room has become, and finds Green standing some feet away, tugging at a pyjama shirt too large for his frame.

He's huffing noisily, moving the hand down his chest with fingers deft in motion, all the way to his stomach. With an easy shrug the shirt falls off, crumpling into the milky dark pool of the floor, almost floating in place, as in water. Red’s eyes widen, but not at that.

Across Green’s skin, flowers bloom in terrific life amongst unwieldy vines, hugging from the front of his body to his sides. Leaves catch at his pelvic bone, jutting out from his pants—resting there, as hands would yearn to do. Green sighs as he tips his head back, hands curling around his neck, fingers massaging the muscles. They drag along the skin towards his collarbone, where his fingers ripple the pigment of his body like water. Midnight blues bleed out like an ink spill, rivulets dripping and disappearing into blossoms of reds and oranges lit by a golden-blue blaze.

But Red doesn’t get to see how far the stained dark-blues soak into his chest. Green turns, showing Red his back, a plain canvas except for where the vines over his hips lead Red’s eyes inward, twisting his gut. Green approaches where the wall_ should_ be, pauses in idle inspection, then brings out an arm at his side.

And with a throw of that arm angling upwards, he scatters starlight high and far, all which find a home to glitter and glow as they come to a slow, comfortable still. 

Red has risen when Green regards him, moved away from the chair and bed, noticing his bare feet, but not really caring. Green grins as he returns to his original spot, fists resting on his sides. The image of pure self-satisfaction.

“How about that? I can’t work in the dark." 

It takes a moment for Red to find something to say.

“You don’t paint,” is the best he manages.

“So? Mr. Know-It-All.” Green scoffs, peering back to admire his work. “I’m not going to hang around in bed all day.” 

So he begins to amble about the room confidently, colours trembling at his feet, fading away as he moves on. Apart from the bed and chair, there were no corners to their supposed surroundings, but Green doesn't show any worry about his path. Green was _ never _worried, or—not the image he painted of himself, anyway. Not the image that Red painted of him, that he knew wasn't right.

But it wasn’t a complete deception. This was Green in his element, the Green in the midst of the battle, the Green who knew how to be in charge: the Green that Red recognised as much as the rest. The same as the Green who often ignored facts he didn’t like until he was forced to admit to them. Like when they got lost.

Finding a spot he likes, Green stops, and starts brushing the air in front of him with a lax arm, seemingly waving his hand back and forth in a sweeping motion. It takes a second for the colours to seep outwards, a rainbow of hues, curving along invisible outlines that Red only makes out once the body is fully stained, which doesn't take long at all.

Pidgeot ruffles his feathers, the accumulated shades inside his frame swirling around his shape, his distinct features lost. But Red can see where his wings might be, his beak—maybe because he knows where they would be, usually.

“How about that?” Green strokes Pidgeot’s head a few more times, then poses with his partner as if he was really there, an arm strung around his neck. But with another pat to his head, a "Good boy," chuckled, when Green drops his hand, the creature disappears, leaving wisps of colourful smoke.

Somehow, none of this distracts Red from the display of Green’s body once he fixes back on it. His upper chest _ has _become blended with the same void echoing a night sky around them, but not completely swallowing his arms. Those fade into a mixture of his skin and the dark blue, with vines around his wrists, dotted by tiny petals. And Red watches as the flowers across Green’s stomach flutter the nearer he gets, colours echoing in the places where his feet touch like rippling halos.

“Who are you dreaming of?” Red asks, his throat dry. Green is in front of him now, face to face, but his gaze is cast down suggestively, his mouth sly. His hands creep into the back of Red’s shirt, fingers cold and hot at once, sending goosebumps down Red's spine.

“Who said it’s a who?” Green asks slowly, tugging at the fabric, a signal. Red concedes, and the shirt comes off. “Want me to paint you?”

Green touches him, his sides, his stomach. His fingers are light and unfulfilling, but still they tantalise, sending heat between Red’s thighs. He pushes into Green, guiding hands to his neck with palms pressed flat, fingers digging and scraping at the skin on the journey. Red can’t see it, but he wants to imagine—that he’s destroying whatever it is consuming Green. The thing that’s marking him. The thing that isn’t _ him. _

He grabs a thigh and pushes into him again, pushing, closer, _ closer, _ never enough—and they stumble back and fall, as kindly as a dream can allow. The ground is soft to the knees, oily to the touch; and like oil to a flame, the one blazing in the backdrop of Green’s garden reaches into his sky and burns up his shoulders. Red bites hard into one, hearing Green shudder a gasp loudly by his ear. 

“I want you to wake up,” Red says, not knowing when; if when he pins Green under him, using his free hand to smudge his flowers into a mess of paint; if when he cups the side of Green’s face, a thumb on his cheek, trailing scarlet fires across an arching body; if when Green wraps his arms around his back, streaking and marking him in colours too.

“What else?” Green asks, already knowing. “What else do you want to do? What else?”  


_ I want you to be mine. _

  
  
  
  


“—Excuse me?”

Red wakes abruptly, springing into life. 

He’s in the hospital—the proper hospital, the one with curtain dividers and wires, the walls visible in their beige and baby blues. The curtain burns its pattern into Red’s retinas before he drags his stare onto Green, who lays there, sound asleep.

But then he remembers then the voice he heard, and looks beside him. A nurse waits patiently, at least in appearance. 

“I’m sorry, but visiting hours are over.”

Red stares at him a while longer before standing—once sure he was okay to—and nodding wordlessly leaving the unit. 


	5. Missing You

—Strange.

His skin feels cool for once. Cooler, anyway: his lungs were still a furnace inside his ribs, every breath threatening to lunge him into a coughing fit. But the swallowing heat seems to be dying now, and when the air brushes by his face, he notices it. _ Notices it, _ and allows himself to relish in it. If he can finally get past this fever, he won't feel so out of it every day. He can finally pay attention, and really get to doing more.

As great as the month's been, there’s not a lot you can properly enjoy slipping in and out of it.

It's strange, though. Noise murmurs in his ears from the outside, the clacking of footsteps far too defined. There's no reason to hear that so clear—not inside his _ bedroom _ of all places . Was some passing woman wearing the noisiest heels, or what? But as he listens closer, when the world starts to come together naturally, the voices multiple; their jargon, the beeps (the _ beeps? _), and the rare laugh.

Too close. It's too close. His skin prickles, eyes searching behind closed lids. _Look, take a look. —No, don’t. _He pats warily at the unfamiliar sheets, searching, until he finds the edges of the bed before he does another hand. Where was_— __where was__—_

A shudder runs up him, forcing him to see the world with a sharp inhale. 

He sees grey.

  


He ingested something, the doctors told him. Said he would feel off for maybe a week or two or more, but he would be fine, ultimately, so long as he took the medicine prescribed. And if there was anything troubling, he should come back. But he didn’t need to worry if he felt listless—that was going to be normal. Apathy was normal.

Normal. Eyes half-lidded, he stares at the ceiling of his bedroom. Boring. Dull. Silent. There was nothing to the view but an empty space filled by a singular coned lightbulb in the centre, warping shadows made by the day glancing through the blinds.

It was nothing. It meant nothing. That was just what the world was, and it was normal.

Except he remembers differently. Just the other night—

Just the other night, the same sight had been more: a stage for living silhouettes sharing stories made from his bed, a canvas for the fireworks that filled his vision with a racing heart. The walls captured secrets and symphonies, while memories were chiselled into the concrete, turning the room into more than its bare intentions. With _ him, _his world had been more.

With _him—_

He blinks. Four corners. Space. A light and shade. A window. Wardrobe. Drawers. Chair. Dull.

Lifeless.

He doesn’t sleep when he closes his eyes. In the darkness given to him, he searches his memories for something more familiar than what’s around him. Ghosts that he remembers, but can’t quite name. A ghost he once knew like the back of his hand. 

Himself, or someone else?

Forever ago, he remembers—something amazing happened. His life knew colour, and wasn’t so grey. It was vibrant with banter and games, disagreements and learning. The sand was toasted gold under the soles of their feet as they walked on it, the moving sea of silver lights brimming when they returned to watch them. They spent cold nights by a burning fire, quiet moments with each other.

They were colour, vibrant, together.

His sheets soaked in amber tangled around their legs and fell with their laughter from the bed. It was skin on skin, kisses chaste, their fingers not. Learning, finding. Knowing, doing. Stories that the shadows couldn’t repeat on his ceiling. The passions that he planned to keep to himself, marks and all.

_ —but when? _

He blinks. Four corners, four walls. A window, wardrobe. A set of drawers. A chair. Dull. Grey—

He stops. Checks again.

The chair’s been moved from the wall to the bed.

  
  
  


The cough will be gone soon, the doctor tells him. Drink your coffee, and remember to eat. In the meantime, he stares vacantly at the open space that makes his living room, the kitchenette sitting out of view. It was the same drab void as his bedroom, a clutter of shapes that mesh together, pointless to even peel apart and name. There was nothing to care for. No one would call this a home.

What _ was _ a home? It was colours. It was warmth. It was noise and activity, peace and quiet lost in the back of a settee with the loose change and the dirt. It was『 』carrying groceries with all four of his arms, kilogram sacks on his shoulders. It was 『 』sitting wherever she pleased, crafting her rubbish into papercranes around the room. It was 『 』shedding her fur over the settee and across the floors. It was『 』pecking at the balcony doors to be let in, _ donk donk donk donk. _

It was hosing『 』 in the mornings, all three heads a choir of joy and pleasure. It was everyone with him, in a world always moving, always breathing. 

It was 『 』next to him, hand in his, telling him, “————.” 

—What?

“————” 

He closes his eyes, listening.

_ It was _『 』

_ telling him _

“ ————— ” 

  
When he opens them again, the balcony curtains are whispering, fluttering to a lazy breeze he hadn’t noticed. He watches them, entranced, nearly missing the plate of eggs and toast that were now on the reading table, a cup of coffee burning his hands.  


_ Four corners. Four walls. Dark. Gloomy. Dull. Drab. _

  
  


The girl explains it’s a gift when she hands him the flask. Everything will go back to normal quicker than whatever the doctors gave him. Isn’t he fortunate? Not everyone is so lucky. But don’t get in trouble again. 『 』won’t be happy.

She may as well have been a ghost. He can’t picture her. He doesn’t remember her body. Her face. How she stood or spoke. Was it day or night when she was visited? Did he let her in? How many times did she ring the doorbell? Did they exchange small talk?

He questions this, but he won't if she was really there. The flask sits on his bedside table silver and black, and his brain tells him that she was. He’s not crazy. She was_ there._ She spoke to him, without a doubt. He's not crazy.

And not only that—he knew her. Knew her name, but found it impossible to picture the characters for it inside his head. It wouldn’t indulge him by sitting on the end of his tongue. That was the state his mind. No better than a taped mouth, a locked vault. A place he couldn’t properly reach. _ His own mind. _

_ Her name was 『 』. _

_ His name is 『 』. _

_ His pokémon’s names are 『 』. _

He stares at the flask, metallic and dull.

(When did he leave the hospital?)

_ Just the other night, living silhouettes had been— cold nights by a burning fire, quiet nights with each other— days and weeks and months with each other— spilling sheets and laughter from the bed. _

Everything will go back to normal when he drinks it.

(How long has he been like this?)

_ What was a home? It was colours. It was warmth. It was『 』smiling at him— lounging on the deck chairs, watching their pokémon play— A salad? No, a curry. A curry?『 』showed us. _

The wind lazily fluttering the balcony curtains. The coffee cup burning his hands. The chair moved from the wall. 

(Who is it he’s forgotten?)

_ I had a good time. _

Four corners. Space. A light, a window, a wardrobe. A set of drawers. Chair. Dull. Grey.

_ You said we're not lost— Don't start— Didn’t do it on purpose— Love you. _

He takes the bottle in his hand.

(He doesn’t want to do this.)

_ You too. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Rings of gold slant wide across the varnished flooring from the standing lamps when Green walks into the living room, the TV quietly mumbling in the corner to an empty sofa, its mahogany leather closer to merlot in its white glow. There’s a buzzing of an appliance, and a sizzling in his ears. He blinks, and the world blinks back at him.

It’s normal. It’s his. It’s life not stopping when he has, and he isn’t sure how to react.

“—Green?”

He looks over to the kitchenette, Red standing on the other side of the island, Machamp next to him. They’re both paused.

Waiting.

“Red,” Green says, finally.

Red’s eyes widen.

Once Machamp has tested Green’s limbs in a death grip, hollering like they’ve come out of a winning match, they move to the sofa. Red sits last, bringing a cup of coffee to the reading table, a plate of scrambled eggs and toast hot on Green’s lap.

“I changed it up,” Red all but mumbles. He’s gripping the sides of his knees, not quite meeting Green’s eye. Green keeps his own attention lowered too, trying to parse the last few— whatever they were. Days? Weeks?, and apart from the few joyous gurgling noises Machamp makes, they sit in silence, Green swallowing his food slower than his empty stomach would like.

That girl—Hapu—might’ve given him some weird magical water, but it did nothing about the sore state of his throat. 

(At least _ that _was real. At least something.)

“I missed you.”

Green’s head lifts. Was that him just now? Did he just say that? But there’s eggs in his mouth, and Machamp isn’t quite so calm. So he looks at the only other person left, who’s torn between clamping his mouth into hard line or chewing his cheeks, and how to wear his eyebrows: tilted in, or out. 

Red says nothing more. So Green does, going, "—Iblaar_ghfff_," or whatever can better describe the sound one makes talking with a throat already filled with toast and eggs. He chokes into his coffee, throat indignant, taking his food down like nails. But he regains his breath after, wiping bits of food and saliva to the back of his hand like the uncoolest guy on the planet.

Still, he manages with some dignity (even if it's less than he’d like): "Same back.”

Red stares at him, unwavering; until his expression softens into something fond, and glad.


	6. Memes

It isn't that Red thinks Green is fragile; but maybe, he was still getting over the weird last few days himself by coming over and seeing how he was.

“It’s over and done with,” is how Green dismisses him, busy spraying potion into Pidgeot’s feathery breast. It’s his first day back at the Battle Tree, just twenty-four hours since his recovery. Ace trainers sit by the platform’s bridge chatting amongst themselves, waiting for Green resume his matches. “Fini’s water worked it stuff and bam, I’m up and running again. You’re not going to start babying me from here on, are you?”

There's spot on Green's head, a large one, a prick of light finding one of the rare gaps of the canopy and hitting there of all places. It's what Red focuses on, where the light dusts off the tawny blend to reveal his mahogany shade. Meanwhile, Pikachu mutters quiet coos on his shoulder. His claws scrape at the cotton fabric of Red's shirt, goading himself to hop on over and give Green some fussing of the unwelcome variety. He just needs to find a good angle, and calculate Green’s reaction. So far, things are looking good.

“You texted me before,” Red points out—less of a point really, than plain old nagging. “When you were out of it. You still can be.” He pauses, and then adds the question: “What did you imagine?”

It's the first opportunity he's had to ask, or the first he's realised. Watching Green idle listlessly, sitting, laying, sometimes wandering the apartment in an unresponsive daze. His mind elsewhere, even with the markings covering his body slowly, slowly receding. Red's always wondered. How couldn't he be curious? Mina's artist saw the wife they lost; but what would a guy like Green dream?

Pidgeot puffs his feathers, chirping separately from their conversation, and preens under a wing. Green, however, is noticeably silent. Red can’t see his face, what kind of expression he's making: if he’s thinking, and if it'll be a lie, or the truth.

Regardless, it's not for long. "Nothing."

“Nothing?” Red repeats.

“I was out there winning championships left and right and living it up.” The line of Green’s shoulders doesn't shift much as he fusses with Pidgeot, using both hands to stroke along his head, his wings. He cants his head for a shrug. “Just like I could in real life. My life in fast forward,” he boasts.

Green raises from the platform, digging his hands into his sides and curving in his spine. The ring of light falls from his head towards the small of his back—like a fire burning in Red’s eyes again, vines gripping Green’s hips.

“You’re lying,” Red says. An impulse, a nagging.

_"What?"_ Green spins round, scowling on sight. But there must be something about Red’s face—he’s frowning, kinda, as far as he knows—or something else. Green ducks his head, raising his arms impatiently._ “Ergh_. Sorry my half-comatose dreams aren’t _ exciting _ enough for you. _ You _ go give it a try if you’re so interested.”

He then steps back, speaks to Pidgeot—”Ready to rest and wait?”—before sending him to his ball, and walks off toward the waiting trainers. Seeing his opportunity leaving him, Pikachu pounces—only to meet the ground.

The pokémon spits frustrations while Red watches Green’s back, who keeps himself oblivious to the both of them.

Since the night in the hospital, Red hasn’t been able to forget the memory of Green’s hips.

It always starts with the vines, a living ink on his skin. They wrap as hands finding their place, the cracks between stems the space between fingers, the leaves and thorns marking their territory. The twisted green arms curve into his sides, the shapes of flowers budded tight or opening in bloom towards his chest. His sly smirk sculpted on his face, the starry night reflected in his eyes.

He’s never remembered a dream so vividly. Except for the time he and the team were having a birthday party, and Pikachu was running with a knife, Red on his tail. That was an entirely different mood—if more likely. But Red knew why his mind kept going back to that sight; why he thought about it in his downtimes, why he thought about it at night. 

The paints of Green’s illusions smeared between Red’s fingers, a flat palm dragging them along his jaw, across his cheek. He looked best in oranges and deep reds; or maybe that was Red’s ego, not ignorant to symbolism. Green had wrapped his hands across the planes of his body too, but what did it matter, when Red couldn’t see the effect?

It always cooled the growing heat when his mind wandered there. A blank canvas, so he felt. 

And so his mind replays it, over and over, on rewind.

Maybe it’s his thoughts that Green sees coloured on Red’s face, because Red starts getting the feeling Green doesn’t want to spend time with him.

It starts off reasonable, the excuses. “I’m going into Melemele,” to turning down having lunch at the pokécentre café, or, “I’ve got some shopping to do,” or even, “I’m going to take it easy tonight. Spend some time with the pokémon.”

They have their own lives, a need for time by themselves or company of just their pokémon. But since they took up the Battle Tree, they came together: not with a snap, but by a suggestion, a fancy. _ “Hey, you checked out Malie City yet? They say they’ve got their own gym set up there”; “Yo, you haven’t been slacking on your water battles, have you? Gyarados’s been antsy to face some good water types!”; “You still can’t handle your alcohol? Kinda reminds me of when… well…” _

_ “Hey, I’ve got somewhere I wanna show you. Just the two of us...” _

_ — _it was always Green pulling them together.

So Red does the first thing that comes to mind, spotting his chance from his balcony:

“Can you read Green’s mind for me?”

Doused in shadow from her umbrella overhead, Alakazam doesn’t stir from her handheld game, only the minute twitches of her fingers showing movement. Arcanine’s sleeping form is her back rest, while over by the hotel wall, separate from them all, stands Exeggutor, each of its heads in a state of bliss in the sun.

Red holds his tongue. He has to be careful—you don’t just carelessly interrupt a person during their video games, and he couldn’t tell from his position what kind of game she could be playing. The last thing he wanted was to fall to her wrath.

He shifts in place, finding comfort in his squatting position on the concrete. “He’s acting weird,” he explains slowly. “Weirder than normal.”

Alakazam glances at him briefly, long enough for him to read disbelief. Maybe; or _ why-are-you-bugging-me. _Red likes the first option better. 

“Can I have a hint?” he pleads more earnestly, receiving nothing but the beeps and boops of her handheld, and what sound like charge-ups and blasts. Red bites the back of his lip. Should he try bribery? Maybe offer to get her a new game? What foods did she like? He could cozy up to Arcanine and get her to help. Or, how well did he understand bird? Pidgeot was the leader of the gang, after all, he had to know how to get on Alakazam’s sweet side—

“What are you talking to my pokémon about?”

The sun catches his eyes when Red looks over his shoulder. Green stands behind him, fists on his hips, his default scowl dressed on his face.

“Nothing,” Red replies.

Green squints. “Liar.”

“Like you?” Red squints back. Green’s brows raise in bewilderment before clamping down tighter. 

“Do what you want,” he grumbles, but minds to tell Alakazam, “Ignore anything he offers you,” before dipping himself into the outdoor spa. 

But left in the quiet of Alakazam’s beeping boops, the sun burning his back and with no other tactics currently in his arsenal to fall back on, Red goes for the obvious next move—and follows Green in.

On the side opposite of him anyway, five feet apart, and with the bubbles tickling his skin. It’s actually nicer than he was expecting, the temperature cooler than what the sun had been to his back and shoulders. The only thing cooler was the glare coming from Green’s direction, his brows slanted with suspicion, a warning: _I know you're up to something._

With it given, he looks away. Red follows suit, but the peculiar tension between them doesn't cease, or not for him. It finds its way into his joints, agitates him as the silence grows, as he struggles to find exactly what to say, how to say it.

So he might as well go with the first thing that comes to mind, and spit it out: “I’m not stupid.”

“You’re not?” Green jumps at. Then, with less heat: “So what.”

The jets spew their tiny racket, swallowing some volume to their conversation. Their conversation? A weak attempt at a conversation, anyway. Red swallows against a closing throat. The noise is annoying, or maybe a useful excuse to lay the blame on why Red can't think. _So tell me—that you’re avoiding me. Tell me you’re not. What game is Alakazam playing? I don’t want this conversation here. Was it about me? A date._

No, not good enough. Red slips back easily into a silence, an old friend, and Green lets him, a good indicator of when when Green doesn't want to know an answer himself. The poor attempts fizzle with the bubbles, and Red doesn't hear it—doesn't even notice at first—when Green finally leaves the tub, but instead hears the slapping of wet footsteps when he walks.

Red swims to meet him at the closest edge, not ready to leave this unsettled—and it hasn't helped him so far, but he goes the usual, but tries not to overthink it this time.

“When are you free,” he asks.

“Free?” Green stops, staring down at him like he had before, shrouding him in his shadow. “For what.”

His brain skips, but not because of words. Now isn't the best time to be distracted by the sight of Green’s skin worked at by the warm weather, the grooves of his ribs, the entire view; the trailing water making it harder not to follow their journey to the band of Green’s trunks, the shape of his legs. All familiar, all distracting.

It's easier for Red to sit his eyes on Green's stomach and make out the map of his skin than to look up. But he has to, making avoiding it all the more (embarrassing) annoying.

“To hang out,” Red manages; not reading any looks, his mind elsewhere.

“Didn’t we just do that,” Green remarks, tone unwilling to give away anything. He rests a hand on his side, adds with a faint amusement, or submission, “Saturday.”

“Okay,” Red replies, and that’s that. Green leaves into the hotel, and Red rests himself back against the jets, waiting to cool to their temperature. He only notices when he gets up to leave that the trio of pokémon are still in their positions, if with another umbrella keeping Alakazam comfortable.

Green is a spoilsport by his side. “It doesn’t have the same effect when you’re this far away, you know.”

Still, there was some truth to the remark. Out where Red's taken them, the lush jungle is no better than a swarm of pansage pushed together, their bushy herbs the canopies of the trees. But in their crowding, the _ Sleepy River _can still be seen: a stream of pulsing white made by the morelull and shiinotic waking at night, illuminating so brightly as to be seen from the outer edges of Wela Volcano, a milky way inside the trees.

“Do you wanna get closer?” Red offers halfheartedly.

Green scoffs. _“Hell no.”_ He stretches out his limbs instead, the singular blanket Red owned not softening the ground much, but Green hasn't complained in a while. Their small cliff side was lit by two mini-flashlights taped to poles, a beacon for them to fly in by, and to keep them from squinting in the dark. 

_ “Creative,” _Green had dryly remarked when he saw it. Red had shrugged, agreeing more genuinely.

The Alola islands drop in temperature once the stars begin to blink awake, and even with their backs to the cooling volcano, their spot isn't much different. Green has a shiver to him, muttering, “wish you told me to bring a coat,” and Red considers swinging an arm over him, going “Here,” and what a great opening that be? The kind of things cool guys do. The kind of thing he'd like to do simply for the contact.

His arm twitches, anticipation already giddy in his shoulders. Red scoots on closer, mind buzzing—and places his arm behind Green’s back instead, leaning in next to him. A compromise. “Better?”

“Oh, sure.” Green straightens his shoulders, brushing into the side of Red. He doesn’t press into him, but Red feels his presence radiating, his body stiffen. Feels his own doing the same. “So…”

So—about the loudred evidently sleeping in the room, the topic they can’t creep over. Their disaster _ date, _or whatever that had been. Date. A date. He hadn't thought about it like that at the time, and he stirs now between indecision and restlessness. It was fascinating, terrifying, but more of the former than the latter. What did he want? He knew, but knowing didn't make it easier. If this was a battle, he'd already be knocked out. If he was a pokémon, he'd like to _engrain _and take root, and never have to make a choice again. 

Nevertheless, he forces himself to lean closer to Green, to say as casual as possible: 

“I had a dream about you.”

“Wha-” Green looks at him, bewildered, off guard. Then with a second’s thought: “Well, _ yeah.” _Then, another: “What about?”

“Just the two of us,” Red shares, lowering his face, his voice. Not any more confident, but— he catches the telling lick across Green's lips, the glances, and ignores the anxiety in his chest for it. He kisses Green softly, or intends to; but his heartbeat turns from frantic drumming to giddy, throwing out _ plans _ for _ want__s_, and slips his tongue to lick Green’s bottom lip, taking a hold of it before letting it free. Green wraps an arm round the crook of Red’s neck and drags him in, closer, not letting them part.

When he does, Red can only hear their breathing, his heart rate—Green sighing hotly against his mouth.

“Yeah?” Green murmurs playfully. “What else?”

_ What else? What else do you want? What else— _

  
Red responds by sinking them back into the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow is a 'free day', meaning the prompt was/is up to the person participating! While I had some ideas to really wrap up this adventure of 'make all the prompts join together', I wanted to give myself a break from writing, and didn't finish it to have a submission.
> 
> I do plan to one day include it, but have no idea for a day. However, if there's anything you would like to see in that chapter when I add it -- whether you want to give me a prompt or challenge, idk, idc -- feel free to tell me. I'll keep it in my notes!


End file.
